Tenato Strategy Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 9, 2016/02/12) */
The Clients contacted our office requesting that we find them the least expensive flight to Olso. There are actually 3 airports that are identified as Olso airports. None of which are located in the city of Oslo itself.
They were provided...

an itinerary with the least expensive flight to Olso. The clients were able to review the flight schedule, connections and final destination airport before purchasing the flight. The flight was not paid for until I had the client's approval of the schedule sent to them by email. After they confirmed everything looked correct, including the airport they were flying in to, the flight was purchased.
It wasn't until several months after purchasing the airline tickets, approximately 1 month prior to traveling, they came back and said that they needed to fly into one of the other three airports. The clients stated they had contacted their son living in Oslo and he instructed them to fly into a different airport. At that time the clients inquired about changing their destination airport. After checking the cost to change their ticket to arriving at the other Oslo airport, the airline was going to charge $550 to change their previously approved and purchased flights.
They stated they have family that lives in the city center of Olso and they would have to take a train to the city center. All three airports offer train transportation into the city center. I offered to pay for the train ticket into the city center from the airport they had originally approved and purchased. This is an expense that they would have also had to pay to get to the city center from the other airport they wanted to change to because none of the airports are located inside the city of Oslo. They declined the offer, and threatened to report our agency to the Revdex.com claiming we had wronged them, if we did not purchase the new airline tickets for them.
The Clients decided they wanted to fly into a different Oslo airport because their son told them to several months after they had already purchased their tickets. We made every reasonable attempt to change them to the other airport by contacting the airlines in an attempt to get them re-routed without cost, to no avail. If the clients would have asked to fly into a specific airport prior to purchasing the airline tickets, this problem would have been averted. Instead they requested the least expensive ticket and had time to review and approve their itinerary before purchasing the tickets. Our agency cannot be held responsible for a person choosing to change their travel plans at the last minute because of a recommendation of another party. Those decisions need to be made prior to purchasing airline tickets or held at the expense of the person wanting to change their itinerary. It is not our responsibility to pay for changes that our clients want to make after they have approved and purchased tickets.
As for the luggage fees, airlines can change their luggage fees at any time without prior notice and they were advised of that.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 11, 2016/02/19) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Southwest Travel never offered to pay for anything. If they had corrected their mistake at their expense, we would not be having this problem.
Yes we contacted Southwest Travel requesting they find the least expensive flight into Oslo. We thought this agency would find a flight at least close to Oslo. Not clear down south on the southern most part of the country. We requested least expensive because we did not want first class or any additional add on expenses. Besides that, who is going to request the "most expensive" flight? They also said we should have specified a certain airport we wanted to fly into. We did not know the country of Norway. That is why we contacted them expecting their travel agency to know what they were doing. They are suppose to be the travel professionals. Into Oslo would signify closest primary international airport which is Gardermoen. Google it! Visitoslo.com It says OSLO airport (OSL) is located at Gardermoen 47 KM north of Oslo. OSL is Norways largest airport. Sandefjord airport is 110 KM south of Oslo. We did not specify a certain airport because we did not know there were 3 choices. Obviously Southwest Travel was aware of 3 airline choices but did not inform us for any possible preference.
We did review the flights schedule, connections and final destination airport as written and it was repeated back to the agent. That it had Sandefjord (Oslo) in parenthesis. It showed Oslo which is where we wanted to go so that "looked" okay. Not being aware that we would have to transfer by bus, subway, cab or other means of additional travel to get to Oslo. Which was another 110 KM away from the airport they sent us to. Out of the 3 airports they chose the furthest away from Oslo that led to additional travel time, expense and headaches.
It was after we contacted the airlines that we became aware that our tickets were messed up. There was no recommendation from another party as Southwest Travel stated in their reply. Southwest Travel had told us the airline was going to charge us $376.00 for each flight change with a total of $752.00 not $550 as they last replied. We asked Southwest Travel to fix the flight problem. They should have brought it to our attention since there was a preference of airports. We contacted Southwest Travel expecting them to be the professionals and to have some clue of airport locations. Their job was to send us to the primary international airport of Gardermoen. As stated before, the envelope was addressed to [redacted] instead of [redacted] There is no [redacted] in this household. After contacting the airlines we found out no assigned seating was given or meal preference as requested. Many mistakes were made by this company. We never told them to purchase new tickets but expected them to amend them at their expense to the correct airport. We paid for our tickets in full believing our destination was correct as we reviewed it over the phone with this agency.
We do not have family living in City Center of Oslo and do not even know if such a place exists. Do not have a clue where that statement came from. We would not have had the expense of getting to City Center since we were never going there in the first place.
Southwest Travel has distorted the truth. We never declined any offer since none was ever made. We never threatened them. We informed them of our next actions and that was the Revdex.com, attorney general, facebook, local news and anyone else we could think of because they chose to take no responsibility and were incompetent in handling this situation they created. That is when the female agent stated, "well we have several attorneys on staff." I replied to her, "well goody for you, I know some attorneys too."
The one thing this agency did half right was regarding the luggage. The paper they sent to us stated,
-Your first checked bag (per passenger) is free
-Your second checked bag (per passenger) is free
Rates are per person and per direction and are subject to change.
When we checked with the airline and found out about the errors already made is when we were told $100 charge for each additional checked bag after the first one (per passenger) So yes, Southwest Travel covered themselves on that one fact.
The agency should be held responsible for not making the correct travel plans. We asked that they change the flight to the destination intended at their expense. We never changed from our original travel plans. It was after finding out this agency was sending us clear down south of Oslo that we wanted them to correct the flights. We do not wish for anyone else to be misled by this travel agency.